


those we loved but forgot

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Series: "worst-case scenario is losing you." [2]
Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Pre-OT3, also with appearances by kiri and jester the human au versions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: I love you,he says.Never doubt that.Rafael squeezes her hand, and Jane blinks. Jason hasn’t seen them yet, and he’s not smiling, just trying to crane his neck over the crowd. And he’s not looking at her, and she doubts he loves her.or: Mateo has a day at the zoo. meanwhile, his parents and his babysitter try to move past the awkwardness. (alternately: when all three members of a love triangle have Feelings for each other, things get Complicated even without amnesia in the mix.)





	those we loved but forgot

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Jukebox the Ghost’s “See You Soon”.
> 
> SHARPLY canon-divergent from s05e01 now, I guess. waves a flag while paddling a canoe along.

Afterwards, it feels like Jane’s life has been cleaved into two—this picture was Before Michael’s Death, that video was After Michael’s Death. You can tell this picture is AMD because her shoulders are heavier, her eyes are sadder, and this video is BMD because Michael is there, grinning, frozen forever mid-laugh, mid-impression, his smile preserved in glass and ink.

And she grieved. She moved on. She stopped absently checking the Married box and started absently checking the Widow box. She moved on from being Jane the Grieving Widow to Jane the Widow But Happy And Dating Again, and she loves Rafael like nothing else, feels comfortable in his arms, feels like she’s come home.

And that’s still present-tense.

But Michael’s not dead.

But Michael’s not Michael. Correction, delete delete delete, _Jason_ isn’t Michael, he talks slowly and calls people ma’am and likes dogs and doesn’t know shit-all about computers, although he’s getting the hang of his phone. He just looks like him. He just smells like him. Sometimes the accent fades a little, when he’s sleepy, and he sounds just a little bit like him.

He wasn’t wrong to think he’d blown up her life just by coming back. He has. She had all these plans carefully laid out and contingencies in place should the _telenovela_ chaos around her interfere, but there’s no contingency for a dead husband coming back without any memory. Or a stranger with her husband’s face. She should probably ask him to take her dead husband’s face and voice and smile and go back to Montana, leave her in peace. He even said he would, without a question, if she asked.

But Jane can’t bring herself to ask.

So here she is, freshly awoken, stumbling towards the living room. The book signing had taken a while, and she’s still shaking off the sleep from her limbs when she sees Rafael in the kitchen, flipping over omelettes and humming to a ballad on the radio.

And Michael’s in the living room, playing a clapping game with Mateo.

Or—

Right, Jason. His name is _Jason_ now, she has to remember that. Does she still count as a widow if her husband isn’t her husband anymore?

“Faster!” says Mateo, happily, and the clapping speeds up. “You missed a step!”

“That’s 2-1,” Rafael calls from the kitchen, and looks up from his omelettes to grin at Jane. “Hey, you’re up. I made breakfast.”

“I love you,” says Jane, with a laugh. Rafael smiles, as if he’s still surprised whenever she says that, and goes back to scraping egg off the pan.

“Mom!” Mateo shouts before Jane can move closer to kiss her boyfriend like he deserves. He’s like a rocket, her little boy, slamming into her legs and practically vibrating with excitement. “Mommy! You’re up, you’re up, can we go to the zoo, you promised we would go to the zoo, let’s go right now!”

“He’s been talking about going to the zoo a while,” says Jason, wearily, getting to his feet. He’s still in the same clothes he’d been in the night before, when she texted him to come babysit for them. “We already ate, by the way.”

“Did you know Jason rode a _horse_ ,” says Mateo, excitedly. “He’s gonna show me how to ride horses at the zoo!”

“He asked,” says Jason, somewhat helplessly.

And isn’t that just like Mateo, wrapping everyone who meets him around his pinky finger. Jane gently pries her son off her leg, bending down to peck the very top of his head. “I would love to see you riding a horse,” she says.

“I’m gonna be a knight!” Mateo proclaims, and is just about to race off to the kitchen to hug Rafael before Jane takes hold of his shirt. “Mommy!”

“Wait till your daddy’s done with the cooking,” Jane explains, gently steering her boy to the couch. “One of you might get hurt if you surprise him.”

“I’ll be out in a sec!” Rafael calls, abandoning the pan for a moment to grab a plate.

Jason shoves his hands into his pockets. “So I guess I’m heading out now,” he says, ducking his head and not meeting her gaze. “I left my clothes at the motel, and I’ve got to walk Bo. I don’t really wanna impose more than I already have—”

“No, no, no, you’re not imposing,” says Jane, “if anything, I probably interrupted your plans.” She wouldn’t have, if there was any other choice. At least she’s sure of it.

“I didn’t have any plans,” says Jason, somewhat helplessly. “I was just—watching NCIS.” He glances towards the kitchen, and looks back at Jane, and god his _eyes_. Her breath catches in her throat, the way it did when Michael whispered his vows into her ear. He can’t remember them now. He’s not the man who whispered those perfect words in her ear, kissed her on her wedding day, loved her till his last breath. “I should get going,” he says, abruptly. “I’ll, I’ll meet you at the zoo.”

“Yeah,” says Jane, feeling her gut twist into knots as Jason turns and walks away. “We’ll see you there.”

\--

Rafael kisses her on the cheek as they’re washing up the dishes and says, kindly, “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Jane says, and it’s not—a lie, exactly, but it isn’t everything. She had thought she’d known how the story would go from here, but this is a wrench she didn’t expect. Fuck Rose, fuck her and this bullshit she keeps dumping on them, fuck her for taking Michael away from her and then returning him broken and unrecognizable, unrecognizing. Fuck, just, _fuck_.

So maybe she’s not as okay as she hoped she would be, by now. Whatever. She scrubs the plate down and puts it away, shaking off the soap suds from her fingers.

“Really?” says Rafael, putting the dish towel away.

Jane’s breath hisses out from between her teeth, as her fingers grip onto the counter. “Right now I want to give Rose hell,” she says. “For—all of this. Everything. Luisa, Mateo, Michael or Jason, where does it _end_?” She lets go of the counter, turns the faucet on, washes her hands. “What is she trying to do? Why go to all these lengths?”

“I’ve got no idea,” says Rafael, with a tired sigh as the faucet turns off. “The only person she’ll tell is Luisa, and she already got her location.” He fiddles with his sleeves, guilt written across his face, and Jane can’t help but slip her hand into his and squeeze tight. “She wants Luisa to come talk to her in prison.”

“Does Luisa know?”

He nods, says, “She said she was figuring out a plan of attack, when I last called. She wants to know why Rose took Michael too.”

Jane breathes out, slowly. She wants so badly to know _why_ , because her head is spinning with more and more upsetting scenarios. How long did Rose have Michael? She _tortured_ him, there’s no other name for repeated ECT with the aim of scrubbing his memory clean, but what else did she do? What else?

But Luisa and Rose are never a good combination. Luisa gets _hurt_ around Rose, lied to and manipulated by someone whose idea of love is all twisted up and thorny—no matter how Luisa might try to grasp it she’ll be cut to pieces. And Jane can’t let that happen. Not even for Michael. Or Jason, she supposes.

“She shouldn’t have to,” says Jane, exhaling and squeezing Rafael’s hand. “The best thing she can do is to stay away.

“She’s not asking,” says Rafael. “I’m going to go with her, tomorrow, so she won’t be alone with Rose, at least.”

Jane freezes, feels the ice creeping up her spine. “No,” she whispers, gripping his hand tight and pulling him in close. “No, you and Luisa—she took Michael and did this to him, what if she decides to go for you?”

Rafael turns, and slides a hand onto the nape of her neck, gently pressing his forehead to hers. Something flashes in his eyes at the mention of Michael’s name, but it’s gone too fast before Jane can name it. “We’re going to be careful about walking in there,” he says, looking her in the eyes. “Petra’s hired guard detail, we’ll be in an area that’s swarming with cameras, and we won’t play Rose’s mind games. Okay? We’ll be okay.” _What happened to Michael will not happen again,_ he doesn’t say, but the words hang in the air anyway.

Jane exhales. “I know,” she says, but all she can think of is that horrible call, how it shattered her very soul. She’d thought Michael had been safe too, and then thought him dead, and all that time Rose had caught him in her net. If she loses Rafael the same way, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. “I know, I’m just—I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”

“I don’t either,” says Rafael. “You won’t lose me. Not to Rose.” He presses a kiss to her hairline, his hands drifting up to frame her face. “I love you too. Come on, let’s finish up and get Mateo to the zoo. Maybe we can beat Mi— _Jason_ there.”

\--

Jason’s already there when they get there, standing apart from the crowd, a little out of place. He hasn’t got Bo with him, which is something of a relief and a curse at the same time, because the dog had been a difference between him and Michael that Jane could use. Without it, when she sets eyes on him, she sees Michael smiling back at her, clean-shaven and familiar, eyes bright and loving.

 _I love you,_ he says. _Never doubt that._

Rafael squeezes her hand, and Jane blinks. Jason hasn’t seen them yet, and he’s not smiling, just trying to crane his neck over the crowd. And he’s not looking at her, and she doubts he loves her.

“Jason!” Mateo yells, and sprints towards him with arms thrown open. Rafael takes off first after him, Jane just seconds behind, but nothing happens besides Mateo hugging Jason’s leg and saying, “Are you going to show me how to ride a horse now?”

“Oh,” says Jason, and he very gently pries Mateo’s arms off his leg. “Yeah. Just—let me get the tickets first.”

“No, let me,” says Jane. “You boys stick together, I’ll handle the tickets.” She’s got enough money left over from last night’s anthology launch and book signing that she’s pretty sure she can even squeeze snacks and souvenirs in today. As long as Mateo doesn’t get too ambitious in his souvenirs, anyway.

And she walks away towards the very long line in front of the ticket booth, leaving Rafael, Mateo, and Jason behind.

\--

Some time ago, Rafael made a quiet promise to himself: he’d try to be better, as a person and a father and a lover, and make up for past mistakes. For Jane and Mateo, if nothing else. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve them loving him, even after everything that’s happened to and around them, and he doesn’t want to lose them again.

He believes Jane, he really does, when she says he won’t.

It’s just—

There’s still that quiet little voice in the back of his mind that says otherwise, and he has no idea how to make it go quiet. He’d tried drinking, tried flings, and all that’s done is feed it more and more.

And now Michael is back. Or Jason, he supposes, who doesn’t even talk the same way Michael does. Did. Tenses are hard when you’re speaking of people who’ve come back from the dead, unfortunately.

Michael is back, goes by Jason, and Mateo adores him. And he seems to care about Mateo right back, which is— _fine_ , it’s fine. Rafael can live with it. It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. Rafael is not going to feel absurdly jealous that his own kid seems to prefer someone else _again_. It’s fine, he’s fine, everything is just fine.

If he can tell himself that enough times he’s sure he’ll believe it.

“—and then Abuela let me watch _Passions of Santos_ , but it didn’t make a lot of sense,” Mateo’s saying, as Rafael resurfaces from his reverie on the bench they’ve found near the entrance. “And I _know_ there’s more episodes past the one Abuelo died in, I looked it up, but she says she won’t let me watch them ‘cause they’re not very good anymore.”

Which is true, the show did go downhill, in terms of quality. “And you’d break your Abuelo’s heart,” Rafael adds.

“That too,” Mateo says. A bell _dings_ , and Mateo scampers off the bench with a cry of, “Ice cream!”

And what can either of them do but follow Mateo there. The second he sets eyes on the ice cream stall and one of the kids from his classroom nearby, they’ve got no chance of recovering his interest, so all Rafael can do is find a picnic table with two benches so he can keep an eye on Mateo and this—Kiri, apparently.

Jason sits next to him. “I didn’t get to say this before,” he says, “but—thanks. For answering some questions, at least.” He pauses, then sighs. “And for the company last night.”

It had been strange, coming home to see Jason sitting at the kitchen table instead of Jane, steadily trying to drown his sorrows (drown _something_ ) in a mug of coffee. He’d given the insomnia excuse, certainly, but Rafael’s had recurring nightmares too. He knows what it looks like when someone’s had one, knows what to look for and what to do.

He wonders what the hell kind of nightmares Jason has. He’s spent four years in Montana just living quietly out in a farm, that’s not something that lends itself easily to nightmares.

“Welcome,” says Rafael, squinting as Mateo claps excitedly for Kiri. “And thanks for coming by and babysitting on short notice. You really didn’t have to.”

Jason scratches the back of his neck and says, “I didn’t have a lot of plans. Or a job.”

“Petra might have something,” Rafael says, reflectively. “She owns the Marbella, and lately she’s been having trouble getting people to come take jobs there.”

“That’s the leggy blonde, right?” Jason asks, which, what. “Jane introduced me to her. She’s real pretty.” He props up an elbow on the bench, eyebrows furrowing. “Did I ever have a thing with her?” he asks, which, _what_. “Jane said we didn’t.”

“Yeah, no,” says Rafael, after a beat, beating off all thoughts of Michael and Petra from the forefront of his mind with a mental broom. “Jane’s right. You _did_ try to hide her affair from me because you didn’t want to keep Mateo, that’s the closest thing I can think of.” He pauses, then adds, “Also, we were married. Me and Petra, I mean.”

“Oh,” says Jason, wincing. “Tough break.”

At least he sounds more sympathetic this time.

“And at the moment, so far as I know, she’s trying to woo Jane Ramos,” Rafael adds. “So if you were thinking about it you missed the boat.”

Jason nods, seeming pensive.

Rafael sighs, then leans back against his chair.

Then Jason says, “Why wouldn’t people come work at her hotel?”

 _Probably the string of murders and crimes that keep popping up in and around it,_ Rafael doesn’t say. “The Marbella has something of a sordid history,” he says, carefully.

“So employees got murdered there?” Jason asks.

“Yes,” says Rafael, caught off-guard. Jason’s so different from Michael that he’d forgotten that the guy had been a _police detective_ , and almost a lawyer. Of course he’d make that connection fast. “But it’s a good place, with good benefits, and—”

“Yeah, I’m in,” says Jason, with a shrug. “I need the money anyway. I’m sort of broke.” He pauses, then drums his fingers on the table’s sun-warmed surface and says, “Wouldn’t be the first place I’ve worked at with a sordid history.”

“...okay, now I’m morbidly curious,” says Rafael. “What did you work at in Montana that a _string of murders_ doesn’t bother you?”

“A bar that people who—had shady dealings had them in,” says Jason, somewhat evasively. “And a rodeo.”

“And is that where you learned to ride horses?”

“No, that was on the farm,” says Jason, and he props his chin up on the heel of his hand and looks Rafael in the eye. For a moment, Rafael’s breath catches right in his throat. He—had not noticed how startlingly blue those eyes were before. No wonder Jane fell for Michael so long ago, those are _some eyes_.

“—Daddy? Dad?”

Rafael blinks, again. Somehow Mateo’s back on the bench between them, waving his hand in front of Rafael’s face. “Hey, Mateo,” he says, catching his son’s hand and putting it back down, “what’s up?”

“Hey, Mateo,” says a young girl’s voice, deepening as if in imitation. Of him, Rafael realizes, and he glances behind Mateo to see a small girl with dark eyes and a mess of dark curls, peering up at him. “What’s up?” Kiri continues, and it’s unsettling hearing a _very_ close approximation to his voice out of someone four inches shorter than his son.

“Daddy, Jason, this is Kiri!” says Mateo.

“I am Kiri,” says Kiri, her voice pitching up high and taking on a weirdly familiar Slavic accent. “Yes, I am very sweet.”

“She can pretend to be anybody,” says Mateo, proudly. “Kiri, can you do my mom?”

“Hey there, Mr. Sweetface, who’s your friend?” says Kiri, and it’s even more unsettling for Rafael that this young girl, who can’t possibly be more than five at most, has somehow managed to get Jane’s voice down pat. She nods to Jason and says, still in Jane’s voice, “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Matter of fact, I am,” says Jason, leaning down. “Where’re your parents?”

Oh, shit, they should’ve _said_ something—

“ _Love you long after you’re gone, gone, gone,_ ” Kiri sings softly, her voice approximating a Southern baritone subtly different from Jason’s. And not just because it’s a little girl imitating someone else’s voice.

Rafael huffs out a breath, and says, “She’s raised by her aunt and her aunt’s friends, as far as Jane could tell. Her parents are—not in the picture.”

“It’s pretty sad,” says Mateo.

“Her aunt,” Kiri agrees, echoing Rafael’s voice almost exactly, pointing across the way to—to where one of Rafael’s coworkers is sitting right now, actually, the short one with the bright blue hair and eyes who’d greeted Rafael on his first day by telling him he smelled a little too sweaty. She glances up from her ice cream now, grins, and waves hello. Then she tilts her head, gets to her feet and rushes over.

“Kiri!” she says, scooping the little girl up into her arms with ease. She talks _fast_ , the words all gushing out of her in a flood like so: “Caleb is going to come here to pick us up in a few minutes, so we have to go—hi, Mateo, hi, Rafael and boyfriend—now say bye to Mateo and his dad and his dad’s boyfriend!”

“My _what_ ,” says Rafael, caught off-guard.

“What?” says Jason.

“ _What,_ ” says Jane, right behind them.

\--

“What were you guys even _doing_ that she thought you were dating?” Jane says later, as Mateo leads Rafael to the bird exhibit, exclaiming over the toucans. It’s—It’s not harsh, it’s not judgmental, she doesn’t mean it to be, but it comes out a little bit more hurt than she expected.

“Sitting together,” says Jason, a little bit defensive, as they’re walking along and taking up the rear. Goddammit. “Nothing was happening. She just—jumped to conclusions, that’s all.”

“I just don’t understand how that’s the conclusion she could’ve jumped to,” says Jane. She squints up at the faded letters over their heads as they walk past: _Birds of Paradise_ , it reads. There’s even a little toucan flying out of the _e_ , and she imagines it looking down to snicker at her.

“We were just talking,” says Jason, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Then Mateo came up with this kid who did some creepy impressions. Her kid.” He huffs out a breath, shakes his head. “I got no clue either how she got there. You say you’ve met her before, right?”

“Yeah, we’ve run into each other while picking Mateo up,” says Jane. “Not with Rafael, though. And honestly, usually one of her friends shows up instead.” She has no idea what the story behind that is, and under any other circumstance she’d find it interesting. Right here and now, she just shoves it aside. “Still. _Boyfriends._ ” She snorts out a laugh and shakes her head, caught up in a flash of memory: Michael coming back home, dumping his gym bag on an armchair, dejected that his man date hadn’t gone well. “You guys never showed any interest in other guys,” she says.

Jason kicks idly at a pebble lying along the railing, not looking at her, and says, “What were we like?”

“Not great around each other,” says Jane, with a sigh. A parrot caws at her: _that’s an understatement._ “He loved me, you loved me, and both of those were at pretty much the same time. So you didn’t always get along.” She crosses her arms over her chest, and says, “I’m glad you are now, though. He’s really good when you get to know him.”

“I’m not gonna argue with that,” says Jason. “He got me here. It’s been confusing, but—it’s more than I got for four years.” He pauses, then says, “You, um. You love him?”

“So much,” says Jane.

“What’s it feel like?”

Jane squints up at him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just humor me,” says Jason, running a hand through his brown curls.

It’s hard to quantify, hard to put into words, and Jane does that for a living. She finds swooping metaphors, similes that shine like gold, poetic phrases that woven together sound like music in her ears, like a tinny voice from the radio crooning Spanish ballads. In her years of writing, she’s never really come close to describing what love _feels_ like, not truly, but she has approximations. Michael didn’t deserve approximations, and Rafael doesn’t either, but they’re all she has.

She says, “It feels like—like I could wake up next to him, every day, for the rest of my life, and I would never get sick of it. Even if he drooled, or snored, or had bedhead, I would never be sick of it. Of him.” She looks up to see Rafael, pulling Mateo up so he can better see the peacock strutting around, blocked by a huge rock. “It feels,” she says, softly, “like if I couldn’t sleep, he would not-sleep with me. It feels like I’m a ship at sea, and he’s a lighthouse guiding me back to shore.”

Jason doesn’t say anything for a long time, just watching Rafael. Then he says, “Hm.”

“What?” Jane asks.

( _Jason wanted, very badly, to say this: “He not-slept with me last night, and when I woke up he was pretty much drooling into my hair, and that might be the first time I ever woke up next to someone without wanting out of their house immediately. I think I might like your boyfriend. Romantically. And I don’t know about Michael, sometimes I don’t know if I want to know about Michael, but I’m bisexual, so.”_

_But he knew, without having to say it out loud, that Jane’s reaction would go something like this: “I’m sorry,” she would say, in a very judgmental fashion, “what.”_

_“I might also like you.”_

_“What the hell.”_ )

“Nothing,” says Jason, breathing out slow, looking back to Jane. There’s a shadow behind his eyes like he’s starting to figure something out that hurts. “Just—it’s nothing, that’s all.”

\--

 **LUISA:**  
Got a list and a plan. Let’s do this today.

Rafael bumps Jane’s arm, and says, “Luisa just texted me. She wants to do it today.”

Beyond the wooden fence, Jason’s fiddling with the reins on the horse Mateo’s riding. Or, well, the pony, but Mateo doesn’t seem to care overly much about the difference. As soon as Jason lets go of the reins and gives a thumbs-up, Mateo kicks the pony’s flanks and is off to a trot around the circuit.

“Today?” Jane asks, turning to look at Rafael. “I thought you said tomorrow.”

“Yeah, apparently she got a plan together fast,” he says. “As soon as we’re done I can drop you and Mateo off at ours, then Jason off at his motel, then meet up with Luisa at the precinct, talk to Rose.”

Jane drums her fingers against the wooden fence, then hauls herself up to sit on it. “I still don’t want you to talk to her,” she says. “I don’t trust her with you. Especially not now, after what she did to Michael.” She pauses, then looks over at the man wearing Michael’s face, shouting encouragements at Mateo, and the heartbreak on her face is—

Rafael looks away, his own heart twisting into knots. “I don’t trust her either,” he says, “but I especially don’t trust her with Luisa.” He sighs.

“I know,” says Jane. “I’m not gonna try to force you to stay home and not go with your sister. I just—I’m worried, that’s all. What if this was her idea of revenge on Michael? What if she isn’t done? What if—”

He knows what an anxiety spiral looks like when he hears one. He takes hold of Jane’s hand, squeezes it tight, and says, “Jane. We’re going to be safe. There’s a glass partition between me and Rose, and she’s watched at all times. Dennis trusts the cops he’s put on her, and you know him, he’s not a half-bad judge of character.” He rubs his thumb over her pulse, and says, “I’ll call you when we’re done, okay? And if anything goes wrong, I’ll text. But I’ll come home, come hell or high water, to you and Mateo. Always.”

Jane rests her forehead against his, her fingers laced in his, and says, “Okay. Okay. I believe you.”


End file.
